Cooper Rush Latest Familiar Face To Join New York Giants’ Roster

The New York Giants were awarded quarterback Cooper Rush off waivers after the Dallas Cowboys waived him, becoming the fifth quarterback added to an already crowded Giants quarterback room.

He is also the seventh player the Giants have acquired this off-season that has a previous tie to a member of the Giants coaching staff, and the second member of the Cowboys, who were, of course, coached by Jason Garrett, currently the Giants offensive coordinator.

While some might lament the Giants’ approach of adding veteran players who were associated with the coaching staff in a previous life, given the circumstances of the off-season brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the Giants’ approach is strategically sound.

The Giants, remember, not only haven’t been able to assemble at their East Rutherford, New Jersey headquarters for spring football and OTAs, they have had to resort to teaching their players the new systems and schemes virtually.

These “mental reps,” in which the Giants coaching staff are hoping the players master so they can hit the ground running when football eventually does return to the grass fields behind the main building of their headquarters, will only go so far, however.

At some point, the players will need to be able to execute what they were taught in the classroom.

While head coach Joe Judge has insisted that the team wasn’t going to sign veteran players to be hand-holders for their teammates, the benefit of adding guys who have familiarity with what the coaches might want could help the Giants reduce the on-field learning curve for when they do hit the field. 

In the case of Rush, an undrafted free agent out of Central Michigan who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 225 pounds, he brings limited experience to the Giants, having only appeared in five games over three NFL seasons dating back to 2017 and throwing just one pass for three yards.

But Rush’s three seasons spent with Garrett in the Cowboys offense will no doubt give him an advantage not just in terms of the competition that’s expected to unfold for the backup quarterback job, but also to help serve as a contact point among the quarterbacks’ room regarding the scheme.

Rush became available when the Cowboys signed former Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton late last week.

To make room for him on the roster, the Giants waived receiver Reggie White Jr, a 2019 unsigned rookie free agent out of Monmouth University in New Jersey who spent part of last season on their practice squad and who has yet to appear in an NFL regular-season game.